Corporate Communications & Investor Relations

Preserving the corporate brand and enhancing reputationA strong brand is a consistent brand, one that is coherently represented and communicated to all of a company's constituencies. Integrated communications can help companies ensure this type of consistency, enhancing the strength and clarity of their corporate brand. Additionally, when communication is integrated, a company’s employees can effectively become its brand ambassadors, reinforcing the company’s desired brand image with the outside world. When communication is integrated, corporate communication professionals don’t have to make decisions with blinders on when a crisis hits — their awareness of what is going on across the entire organization and industry becomes a critical tool for managing communication when the pressure is on to provide explanations and information in short order. Research from the National Investor Relations Institute showed that a company's CEO's involvement and understanding of what's needed often makes - or breaks - the message. Press releases, corporate communication activities, social media posts and more can get the message out there but first the proper message needs to be carefully crafted. Communication strategy is a team effort that needs good leadership, and a great writer and social media maven who is adaptable (that's me!)

SEC approves social media

What the SEC did in April 2013 was break its long silence on social media and securities disclosure with the following: ... companies can use social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter to announce key information in compliance with Regulation Fair Disclosure (Regulation FD) so long as investors have been alerted about which social media will be used to disseminate such information. The SEC’s report of investigation confirms that Regulation FD applies to social media and other emerging means of communication used by public companies the same way it applies to company websites. (source: SEC press release)

Even though the SEC only confirmed what has largely already been in practice for several years, their official acknowledgement of social media as another legitimate platform to disseminate information has the potential to change industry practices. Just a week after the SEC released their guidance, Bloomberg announced that they were going to incorporate Twitter feeds onto their terminals. Social media use in Investor Relations (IR) is clearly here to stay. (adapted from Q4 Whitepaper: Public Company Use of Social Media for Investor Relations – Part 1 Twitter & StockTwits)

How to use social media with IRCompanies need to create a specific social media strategy for investor communications and ensure there is a single branded social media presence for the company’s IR-related content. Some companies operate dozens of corporate-branded Twitter feeds and Facebook Pages and finding the “official” social media profile for investor relations content is difficult. When building a brand within a brand it's best to make the main brand, the stock ticker company, the focal point. I have done this while creating websites and online identities for New Leaf Brands (NLEF), Integrated Freight Corp. (IFCR) and Oncologix (OCLG).

Using social media for IR isn’t just a case of jumping on the bandwagon. Social media use for IR should be embraced so that companies can engage better with investors and increase transparency. Since most companies already expend considerable effort to communicate with customers, prospects and investors. So many companies don’t take advantage of the the ease and speed of social media to have better conversations.